


Deep Space Christmas Race

by punforgiven



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, I Tried, M/M, Merry Christmas!, PINING KEITH, Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, ooh how neat, the dialogue sucks it's so cheesy and ooc lol, this is me projecting how much i love christmas soz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 04:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9056188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punforgiven/pseuds/punforgiven
Summary: Keith is that person who doesn't like Christmas. And that's okay, until Lance comes along and creates his own competition to make Keith love it.
The only thing that races is Keith's gay little heart.





	

**Author's Note:**

> get ready for the most cliche + cheesiest thing u've ever read boii

“Keith, I can’t believe you would betray us like this.”

Keith shot a look at Lance. “It’s only Christmas.”

A few days ago, Pidge, Coran and Hunk had spent their time working on a device that can sync the time and date with that on earth, using the Garrison’s time zone. It had been great for a moment, finally understanding how long it has been since they left earth and began their intergalactic war against aliens, yet when Keith saw the date, he almost regretted it even being built.

A holographic clock hung over the main control panels, the blue text flashing every minute to switch the minute. And so far, he had been sat on the couch, watching as the group bar him strung up a space version of Christmas lights around the pillars.

Listening to the same six Christmas songs on repeat was bearable, he had missed listening to something other than country music for year straight. He didn’t mind when the group sang along to each song that Keith knew nothing about. He didn’t care about the way Allura and Coran stared on at Hunk’s explanation of Santa Clause, or how Pidge stuck their tongue out with concentration as they wired up the lights, or how Shiro smiled to himself, finally relaxed as he dropped his arms to his side and admired the job he had done with the lights.

What annoyed him was Lance appearing behind him, crouching low with a glare and a pout.

“I can’t believe I’m living with the Grinch.”

“The who?”

Lance closed his eyes.

Keith rolled his eyes. “Christmas just isn’t my thing.” He watched as Lance’s eyes opened again, those blue eyes steadily locked on him with a blank expression. “I never had a reason to celebrate.”

“Now you do.” Lance said. He dropped down into the space next to him, not breaking their gaze. Up close, Keith could see the glitter from various ornaments sprinkled across his face. “I bet I can make you like Christmas.” Lance’s mouth twitched up into a grin.

With a chuckle, Keith turned away, staring at the group who were decorating the room. “I doubt it.”

He could feel Lance lean closer, and glancing back, he had _that_ grin on his face. The one that radiated a challenge, his eyes narrowed, almost inviting Keith to fight back.

Why did the one guy that he found himself blushing and internally meltdown over have to have that quirk in his grin, that shine in his eyes, and that mischievous look to him that signalled another competition between, another _Keith vs Lance._ He wanted a Keith _and_ Lance, not having to go along with Lance’s dumb ideas to the attention he desired from him.

As much as he liked Lance’s pretty face, he hated how he wanted to comply to them and jump head first into whatever rivalry they had at the moment.

So, after a few minutes of staring on with Lance’s face beside his, the challenging grin strong on his face as though it was chiselled into rock, Keith sighed: “Knowing you, you’ll mess it up. Let’s see what your perfect Christmas is then.”

 

* * *

 

 

Keith was screaming on the inside.

“Keeeith!” Lance called, his feet squeaking and tapping against the ground. “Stop being such a downer and _join me_.”

He had buried his face in his hands. Not because he was embarrassed by the cheesy Christmas songs and wanted to shrivel up into a ball at the thought of having to follow Lance’s Christmas dance.

After a deep breath, he peeked through his fingers.

In front of him, Lance had his arms raised in the air, swinging them from left to right in a smooth motion while he danced the worst fucking dance to Slade’s ‘ _Merry Christmas Everybody’_.

Lance looked like a four year old who was barely doing more than jumping on the spot with a dumb grin on his face.

It was so bad. It was embarrassing.

But this was Lance. And he was Keith.

Of fucking course he saw Lance’s dancing adorable and made his heart race just listening to the happy laughter, the perfect, in-sync singing and the way that he rolled his name whenever Lance spun on the spot and pouted for Keith to join him.

Keith was embarrassed for himself and for how much his face burned against his hands.

It had been an hour since the group had finished decorating the control room. Everyone had stopped after they searched the Castle’s maps for nearby planets for pine-like trees, and with nothing better to do while floating in an unhospitable galaxy, they started a course for it.

It had been ten minutes; three crappy, old Christmas songs since Keith had been dragged by a bright-eyed and energetic Lance back into the control room.

“ _Keeeeith!”_

Keith would be glaring at the blue paladin if it weren’t for how adorable he found him.

“No.”

Lance lowered his arms. “Yeah you are!”

He didn’t even know where he got all these songs from. The small speaker on the floor, in range of Lance’s kicking feet, was connected to a music player which must belong to Lance, because if anyone was going to carry around a music player filled with popular Christmas songs at all times, conveniently for a space Christmas party, it would be him.

“I’m not dancing.”

“It’s alright, mullet man. I won’t judge your awful dancing.”

There was a moment of silence in the room, and a fleeting bit of relief ran through him.

The next song began, and with the first note, Lance had stopped his dancing, facing Keith who slouched on the couch, with a sly grin on his face and a hand raised to his chest.

“… _I don’t want a lot for Christmas…”_ Keith blinked, his eyes widening as Lance took a small step towards him. Lance’s eyes were on him, strong and confident as they stared at each. He felt small under Lance’s gaze, a nervous feeling rising up in his chest, a worry that Lance could see right into his soul and was tearing through weeks of memories and thoughts and feelings that Keith had of the guy standing in front of him.

_“…There is just one thing I need…”_ Lance took another step, singing along to the lyrics as though he felt them from his very core. Every pitch change, every breath, Lance nailed, all the while stalking closer and closer.

_“…And I don’t care about the presents, underneath the Christmas tree…”_

Lance was standing right in front of him. Keith was frozen on his seat, his hands hanging in front of him, ready to bury his face into them again.

The signature shit-eating grin was back, and Keith stopped breathing for a moment, too in awe, too frightened to focus on anything else.

_“…I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know. Make my wish come true…”_

Lance had leaned forward closer and closer. “ _…All I want for Christmas…”_

Lance took a deep breath in front of him. With a quick flick of his wrist, Keith found his outstretched hands clutched in Lance’s, jolting him back into the present world and making his red face pale in surprise.

His eyes travelled down to Lance’s lips as he sang the next word.

_“…Is you!”_

Before he could react, his hands had been tugged forward, pulling him from the couch and onto his feet. The music was drowned out as Lance’s high-pitched laugh rang in ears.

 

* * *

 

 

It occurred to Keith, while he was gazing up at the strings of “fairy lights” strung from the pillars in the command room, red, and green and yellow and white and blue blinking softly, hypnotically above against the turquoise light from the pillars that maybe he didn’t hate Christmas as much as he thought.

He wasn’t like Lance. He wasn’t stubborn to the point where he went against everything to prove anyone, especially Keith wrong.

He liked the Christmas lights that spread out above him like a spider’s web, a blanket above the endless starry landscape above him.

If he weren’t a part of a dangerous war for the sake of the entire universe, then maybe he’d stay like this, spawn across the command room’s couches, his hands resting on his stomach and his legs hanging off the end. He wouldn’t mind staying in this moment forever, chasing each twinkle with his eyes, circling around the roof and feeling himself sink lower and lower into the couch.

For the first time in a while, he felt at ease. He had thought that staying active was all he needed. Fighting and training was keeping him alive, letting his inner fire burn with the energy that used, yet here he could feel himself relax and be happy.

With the soft hum of the space ship around him, the ‘daylight’ lights dimmed, he felt safe, secure, as though the weight of the world wasn’t resting on his shoulders. He felt like a teenager that was taking their time to breathe rather than to progress and do well.

He turned his face to the side, looking at the slanted tree to the side. A smile broke out across his lips as he stared at it, looking at the scaly, yellow trunk and feeling amusement bubble in his chest as he recognised the countless cuts scattered across the bark from the groups failed attempts at chopping down “one of the strongest kind of trees in the universe”.

He remembered how he had gotten a kick out of it, the adrenaline building up inside of him and rushing through his veins, pushing him to hit harder and harder at the trunk with his bayard clasped in his hand.  He remembered how Lance’s face had appeared beside him all of a sudden and his adrenaline had vanished, because that dimpled grin, tear filled eyes and breathless laugh had been a slap to his face and left him gaping at his friend until he couldn’t remember the ache in his joints and the burn in his muscles. He remembered the way Lance pointed a finger, unable to hold steady with his bursts of laughs, as he pointed at Keith’s face and wheezed out a joke.

Keith couldn't even remember the joke. He had been too transfixed on Lance's face, the way that after he said his “ _hilarious”_ joke he arched over, completely ignoring Shiro behind him who continued to hack away at the tree with determination. He found himself laughing along absently.

There was something about the way Lance’s face had glowed when he looked back up that made Keith’s chest warm up so quickly just thinking of it again that he thought he was going to melt right then and there.

He rolled his head back, staring up at the Christmas lights and let out a sigh.

_When the fuck did I become this pathetic?_

He’s had minor crushes before, but when he looks up at the lights and sees the blinking blue eyes as Lance’s eyes, softly gazing down at him, he knew that this was something else.

Something new and scary, and something that he felt so desperately right that it managed to mould his feelings about everything, including Christmas, the thing he had grown up bitter with, seeing the families so happy and ecstatic. With this strange mix of a family, he could see why people enjoyed it. He could see why Lance liked it too.

Maybe he’d give this Christmas a shot. If it meant seeing Lance so happy, with no rivalry between them, then he’d try to enjoy himself as much as Lance did.

 

Keith tugged at the hem of the jumper. He stretched it forward, tilting his head to the side.

“’You’re Santa Paws’, really?”

In front of him, Lance stood with a grin on his face and his hands on his hips. He was smug, his half-lidded eyes staring straight at Keith with that proud, “ _I’m amazing”_ expression he had. Even if he had that smug grin on his face, with his chin turned up and his shoulders thrown back in that gloat-y way he had anytime he did something praise worthy, Keith found himself smiling as he stretched the soft woollen material in his fingers.

The jumper was black, which was good considering the hundreds of gross colours Lance could have picked for him. In the centre, there was a bright red blog which to many would look like a strange, yellow eyes, emotionless face, yet noticing the white bottom lip and the two points on the top of the shape, Keith recognised the image of Red’s face with a tiny Christmas hat tilted to one side.

There was no denying it. This was cute. Adorable. (Like the guy that kept that bright grin on his face as he watched knowingly in silence.)

Though it was hard to see from this angle, there was words underneath Red’s face: _You’re Santa Paws_.

Jesus, how badly had he fallen for this guy if he found himself chuckling softly to that god awful pun?

“Don’t worry, this is a present, you get it for free.”

Keith arched a brow at Lance. “Right.” He looked down at it. The other day, he had overheard Hunk and Lance talking about making jumpers. They had scrabbled around the castle for hours, leaving the other more reserved people to silently get on with their own thing.

He didn’t know that Hunk and Lance were this talented, though.

The sleeves of the jumper rubbed against his bare arms as he let go of the hem and returned his arms to his sides, and honestly, it was the softest thing he had ever felt. It didn’t scratch, yet it wasn’t completely smooth. It warmed him up, almost creating a good enough excuse for his heated face.

“Did you knit this yourself?”

Lance had been waiting for that question. Blue eyes flickered to his, and Keith found himself staring into, his own smiling growing as he saw the brightness and excitement on Lance’s face.

“Pfft, of course,” Lance said. “Hunk helped me with parts, but I did most the work.”

Keith looked down at it again. He’d ignore how Lance and Hunk knew the perfect size for him and instead ran his hand over his front, feeling all the bumps and dips from the knitting and the soft material against his skin. He tried to ignore how much it smelled of Lance, the faint but definite scent of the ocean and Lance’s fruit-scented cleaning products. “You did a really good job.”

“You think so?”

As he looked up again, Lance’s expression caught him off guard. It was a mixture of surprise and relief, churned into the emotion of happiness that looked _so good_ on Lance.

“Yeah. I can tell you spent a long time on it. It’s great.” Keith’s voice a lot quieter than he expected.

“Thank fuck,” Lance sighed. “I was worried that you wouldn’t like it.”

_Like I wouldn’t wear anything you made me_. “You were worried?”

Lance chuckled. It was strangely endearing how Lance had jumped from smug and proud to conceited and nervous in a few moments, yet Keith kept on smiling, his cheeks beginning to burn from the strength of his grin.

“I guess,” He buried his hands in the pocket of his jacket and spent his time staring pointedly at the ground. “This is your first Christmas. I want it to be perfect. For you.”

Keith’s smile dropped at that. He could feel his heart doing that thing again, where all the warmth began to bubble in his chest and he felt like it was going to burst out. He stared at Lance’s face, and even with the amount of lights that flickered on and off, casting different colours across his tanned skin, he could still make out a sort of blush.

Before he could stop himself, he leaned forward, loosely grabbing one of Lance’s hands in his own and let a smile stretch across his lips.

“Well, keep doing what you’re doing,” Keith said, his heart hammering in his chest. “Because you’re making it pretty perfect. For me.”

As much as he loved Lance’s jumper, the thick wool did not help keep Keith cool as he felt himself heat up, his cheeks, his ears, the back of his neck spreading with a blush that he couldn’t prevent even if he was dying of hypothermia.

When Lance looked up, the bright look in his eyes again, Keith felt like his heart had stopped beating for a second. He wished he wasn’t being so fucking cliché, yet he couldn’t look away from Lance’s face as the corner of his thin lips coiled up, growing into a grin that could honestly end Keith.

He felt fingers loop around his hand, and before his brain could catch up with it, his hand was swinging from side to side in Lance’s. His skin was so soft…

“Looks like you’re going to be loving Christmas in no time!”

If Lance was going to be like this during this Christmas, and the next, and anymore Christmases they could have together, then Keith was going to be waiting for the next one to roll by the second this one’s over.

Keith snorted. “What’s your Christmas jumper like then?”

“Obviously mine is of Blue, and it’s so much _cooler_ than yours.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you think this the best Christmas ever yet?”

Keith was met with a coy smile in front of him as Lance leaned across the table. He was sat beside him, wearing his own blue knitted jumper, with a picture of Lance’s blue lion on the front, a few snowflakes hanging around it’s metallic face beneath the words ‘cool dude’.

As much as Keith wanted to stand up against that coy smile, those half-lidded eyes that hid longing from everyone, he couldn’t help but find himself smiling again, the corner of his lips tugged up as though they were attached to string.

There was something about the way that Lance had quietened down his voice that made him do this, made a shudder of happiness and that bullshit teenage-girl-with-a-crush adoration run through him until he felt himself heat up with a blush and struggle to control his breathing.

As smoothly as he could, he turned back to the plate of food in front of him stacked with various types of meat and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s alright.”

Lance let out a small bird-like squawk beside him. “ _It’s alright!?”_

“Yup.” Keith said.

“What about when I gave you the jumper?!” Keith tried to ignore the sound of sadness in Lance’s voice, but then something better popped into his mind.

“Nope. Don’t remember. Didn’t happen.”

He didn’t even need to see the look on Lance’s face to know that it was priceless.

“You’re still annoyed by that!?” Lance whined. “It never happened!”

“It sure would improve my Christmas if you would admit that it did.”

Lance snorted and it went straight to Keith’s heart. “Christmas is ruined, then.”

“What a shame,” Keith turned to Lance. He hadn’t expected Lance to look so sad, so he smiled to him, hoping that it would brighten him up. “Looks like I was right.”

As Keith said that, Lance stood up, and without thinking about it found himself standing up after him, pushing away from the chair and following the blue paladin as he backed away from the table.

“I think I know how to make it perfect.”

Keith rose an eyebrow.

“What?”

He felt a hand settle on his upper arm, the soft material of his jumper rubbing against his arm and causing Keith to jerk his head back and stare with confusion.

Lance was smiling again. That smile has been everywhere this week, enough for Keith to be able to think of it as clearly as he could remember every detail of Lance’s face.

There was a tug on his arm as Lance curled his fingers around it, leading him backwards.

He stepped back, never dropping the frown on his face, never straying from those blue eyes in front of him, until they came to a stop, and those blue eyes flicked down to meet his and out of the corner of his eyes, Lance’s thin lips wobbled slightly as he smiled.

Lance’s grip on his arm never loosened, but he could feel his palm grow warmer through the material.

As he continued to stare on at Lance, something caught his attention.

He tilted his head back, staring up at an object above him, and froze.

There was mistletoe hanging in between them, attached to one of the low looping string of Christmas lights tied around two of the pillars.

This time, he didn’t bother to care if Lance saw the blush that spread across his face.

Lance chuckled softly.

They stepped close enough that Keith had to tip his head back enough in order to see Lance’s face. He could really see all the details of Lance’s face up close. Each strand of blue in Lance’s eyes, how it caught the Christmas lights in them, the thousands of tiny flashing colours clashing with the turquoise. He could see just how his eyelashes fanned out, how with every blink they settled ever so perfectly against his tanned skin. He could see how smooth Lance’s face looked, how his cheeks were darker.

His eyes dropped down to Lance’s lips. He watched the way Lance’s lips broke apart from the smile, his white teeth revealing as he grinned. He noticed how despite the thinness of those lips, they looked plump and smooth as the fell into that crooked, playful grin that he had.

He barely noticed Lance’s hand fall down to entwine with his own as they glanced at each other, breathed in deeply, and leaned in.

 

At the end of the day, Lance won the Christmas competition.

**Author's Note:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!
> 
> especially to julie!! thank u for being awesome and being friends with my nerdy ass lmao :D i hope u like this fic cause i surprisingly had loads of fun writing this!!! soz for this being so late lol, but dw cause u're gonna get some Angsty Klance soon (in like 10 years)
> 
> please dont judge my title it was this or 'A Mullet Man's Magical Christmas Adventure'
> 
> hope my writing is cool lol thank


End file.
